If not for the its natural resources would 6 countries would be interested to claim ownership for island that's less than 5 square kilometres or 1.9 sq miles? Claimants of Spratly Islands are Brunei, Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Malaysia.
I found myself watching documentaries about this Spratly Islands which saddens me for possible repeat of similar story wherein the Philippines loss its ownership for a certain island. According to the documentary embedded below, the issue on Spratly Islands was not the first time the Philippines have experienced.
In 1878, Philippine government allows British colonizers to occupy its island named Sabah. According to history, Sabah was part of the Sulu archipelago. Later, Malaysia claims ownership for the said island.
Meanwhile, as for the Spratly Islands, I could agree to the host of the documentary video saying we should somehow make the island useful. Making a tourist destination, new place for our prison cells, like Alcatraz maybe? It's also saddening how coward we can get because we don't have a fighting vessels that could match to let say China.
The Spratly Islands are a group of more than 750 reefs,[1] islets, atolls, cays and islands in the South China Sea. The archipelago lies off the coasts of the Philippines and Malaysia (Sabah), about one third of the way from there to southern Vietnam. They comprise less than four square kilometers of land area spread over more than 425,000 square kilometers of sea. The Spratlys are one of three archipelagos of the South China Sea which comprise more than 30,000 islands and reefs and which complicate governance and economics in that region of Southeast Asia. Such small and remote islands have little economic value in themselves, but are important in establishing international boundaries. There are no native islanders but there are rich fishing grounds and initial surveys indicate the islands may contain significant reserves of oil and natural gas.
